"Do that; do that." The King nodded a little wistfully, thinking of his own boorish, ungrateful and neglectful sons. "I count your father lucky in you, Mr. Brook; yes, very lucky. You are a young man of promise. Tell the settlers in Martinique that now they are our subjects we shall have their interests at heart. And forget not the yams, Mr. Brook; forget not the yams."
The King then turned to speak to someone else and Roger bowed himself away. As his father must have passed through London, he was much surprised that he had not gone out to Richmond to see Amanda and enquire if there was any news of himself; but as soon as the levee was over he hurried to the Admiralty, and there learned the reason. Before Admiral Brook landed at Portsmouth, the crew of the ship which had brought him from Gibraltar had handed him a petition of grievances, and after he had submitted it to their Lordships they had requested him to investigate certain of the complaints before taking leave.
By the night coach Roger sent an express to Portsmouth congratulating his father and outlining his own plans. Two days later he received a reply in which the Admiral said that he had completed his report to their Lordships and was about to start for home: he then asked that Roger and Amanda should manage at least a short visit to him before sailing for the Indies. In consequence, on the following Monday they set out for Lymington.
Roger's old home, Grove Place, lay only a quarter of a mile to the south of the High Street of the ancient Borough. It had originated as a farm-house with red-tile walls, built about 1660; but that part of it had been turned into kitchen quarters when, a hundred years later, the main square block had been added, and in 1787 Rear Admiral Brook had spent a part of his prize money earned in the West Indies on adding two further rooms and a spacious central hall with a charming semi-circular staircase. It was now, therefore, no great mansion, but a very comfortable house with six lofty well-proportioned rooms and about twenty smaller ones. Behind it, on the slope up to the town, it had an acre of walled garden, and to its south front lay several acres of meadows, across which, from the tall windows of the house, there was a fine view of the Soleat and the western end of the Isle of Wight.
The busy little harbour was only ten minutes' walk away; in the summer there was always sailing to be had, and in the autumn shooting on neighbouring estates. During spring the New Forest, which lay inland behind the town, offered a thousand lovely spots for picnics, and in winter the stag was hunted there. In such surroundings, other things being propitious, it was impossible not to be happy, and Roger had greatly enjoyed both his childhood there and the visits he had made since setting out into the world.
His father, a bulky, red-faced jovial man, welcomed them with his usual heartiness and declared again and again how glad he was to see Roger safely out of France. The double celebration of the father's knighthood and the son's governorship called for the best wine in the cellar, and no one was more happy than old Ben, the house-man, to get it up for such an occasion.
The Admiral insisted upon hearing both about Roger's last months in Paris and their projected journey to the West Indies, before they could get a word out of him about his own affairs; but Amanda made the two men bring their port into the drawing-room after dinner; then she demanded to know how her father-in-law had earned his K.B.
"M'dear, I did not," he responded gruffly. "That is, unless you can count near forty years of readiness to do my duty on all occasions sufficient warrant for the honour. To be honest, it was a stroke of luck. The common practice is for despatches to be sent home by an officer of captain's rank who has distinguished himself; but their Lordships' order had been received for me to transfer my flag to Harwich; so my lord Hood would have it that I should carry them. That meant my conveying the latest news to His Majesty in person, and in honouring me his real intent was to express his gratification with the Service as a whole."
"Come, Sir;" Roger laughed. "He told me himself that you had played a part in capturing Corsica."
"Tis quite untrue!" his father protested. "The main fleet had no hand in that. Its business was to lie between the French ports and the island, in order to prevent interference with our operations against the latter. As Rear Admiral, my task was the unspectacular one of acting for Lord Hood on the many occasions when Victory left us, so that he might run close in and by his inspiring presence lend fresh vigour to our men's attacks."
"But tell us, please," Amanda urged, "how the island was taken."
"At the outset it looked a simple enough undertaking. The patriot leader, Pasquale de Paoli, already controlled the greater part of the island, and the French held only three strong places in the north. But, in the event, it proved a hard nut to crack. We'd have had it sooner, though, had not the revolutionary troops put up an unexpectedly stout resistance, and our own army failed in a most lamentable manner to give us. adequate support. At times the lack of spirit shown by the latter almost drove our sailor-men into a frenzy.
"The affair opened in mid-January by His Majesty's Commissioner, Sir Gilbert Elliot, and Lt.-Colonel John Moore of the 51st being put ashore to formulate a plan with Paoli. The veteran patriot agreed to employ his partisans in keeping the French from reinforcing San Fiorenzo overland while we attacked it from the sea. Early in February troops were landed on a beach adjacent to the town, but they were slow about it, and it was our jack-tars who showed them how to man-handle guns brought off from the ships up on to the heights so that they could fire down into the fortress. 'Twas a gruelling business hoisting such weighty pieces with blocks and tackle up precipitous cliffs, but once the batteries were in position the game was as good as won. On the 16th an assault was made by moonlight on the principal redoubt, and I am told that Colonel Moore led it with commendable gallantry; but 'twas about the only episode creditable to the army until near the conclusion of the campaign.
"Next day the French abandoned San Fiorenzo and my lord Hood at once urged the setting about of the reduction of Bastia. But General Dundas, who was the chief soldier there, acted in a most poltroon-like fashion. He pleaded that his numbers were insufficient for the task, and refused all further co-operation until he received reinforcements from Gibraltar. My lord was so angry that, although he had no authority to do so, he used his great prestige to order the General home. By mid-March, feigning illness to save his face, he had gone, but his successor, General D'Aubant, proved no better, and would not move a man or gun across the mountainous ridge that separated San Fiorenzo from Bastia. Our great Adrniral then declared that he'd take the place on his own.
"For the purpose he detached Captain Nelson in Agamemnon and two frigates. There followed one of the finest exploits in all our naval history. Horace, or Horatio, Nelson, as he now prefers to be called, although only thirty-five, and despite the loss of seven years between the wars spent on the beach, is become one of our finest captains. He is quite a little fellow and of frail build, but for zeal, intelligence and courage he has no equal, unless it be my lord Hood himself. In this affair he played the part of a Marine, landed his lower deck guns and inspired his men to Herculean efforts in dragging them up seemingly unscalable heights to bombard Bastia. Against him were pitted five thousand resolute French, but he acted as though his own thousand men were ten thousand, and for six weeks attacked the enemy with unflagging ardour. On May the 18th his efforts were, rewarded by their asking for terms. That stirred the army to activity, and to the chagrin of us all it arrived without having fired a shot on the 23rd just in time to accept the town's surrender.